Ms editor Robin Morgan

You're listening to Point of View on WNUA 95.5. I'm Charlie Meyerson, and our guest now is the editor-in-chief of Ms. Magazine, Robin Morgan, whose new book is The Word of a Woman: Feminist Dispatches, 1968 to 1992. Welcome to Point of View. Let me ask you how Ms. Magazine is doing. Ms. Magazine is doing amazingly well against all conventional wisdom because, you know, we went ad-free in 1990. We jettisoned advertising and actually became, you know, a free press again. I may be one of the few people who actually who bought and still possesses what I think was the first newsstand issue of Ms. Magazine back in it was in 1972. Aren't you wonderful? Yes, indeed. The one with Wonder Woman on the cover? Yes, that's quite right. I'm collecting it. I'm. I have it now. That first issue was a study in conflicts. I mean, here we had the flagship magazine of the women's movement in the seventies, and in it, as I recall, were some fairly typical kind of racy ads for suntan lotion and things like that. Oh, even worse, even worse. Charlie, you're quite right. I mean, they did Clairol ads, I think, and it went on that way for years. Yeah. And and and what happened? Tell our listeners. Well, I mean, it was a horror story. I mean, and I don't think most folks understand just how much of a really negative influence advertising has on media, not only print media, but broadcast media too. In many cases, it ranges here. Of course not here. Um, it ranges from, you know, from the subtle to the really blatant. I mean, um, I'll give you many examples or just a few of many examples. I did a story as a contributing editor for miss. I did a story in the early 1980s on the first women in the then Soviet Union who had published an underground samizdat newspaper about feminism, and they had been sent into involuntary exile by the KGB. Their lives had been destroyed. They were stashed without papers in Vienna. I flew to Vienna. I did the first in-depth, exclusive interview with them. We made it a cover story. It won three major journalistic prizes. And because the women on the cover, these wonderful, terrific, strong faces of these young women were not wearing makeup. Revlon pulled all of its ads from Ms. and never returned. Now, that kind of thing was absolutely epidemic. And of course, what it does is it reflects on your copy. I mean, and then they demand what they euphemistically call complimentary copy, especially from women's magazines. So if you want clothing ads, you have to run fashion columns. If you want food ads, you have to run recipes. This was a problem for Ms. for eighteen years. And then finally, although it never lacked for readers, the tension between being an advocacy magazine for women and trying to please advertisers made it go under. And then it was. It went through. Two or three different buyers, became even more glitzy to try to please advertisers. I left, and in late eighty nine it was acquired by Lang Communications, which asked me to come back on board as editor in chief. And I had these crazy terms, which I thought, you know, left me pretty safe. I could just keep writing my books, you know, no problem. And one, one of my terms was no advertising had to be really reader supported and a free press, no editorial interference from Lang Communications at all. If they started to meddle, I would quit and hold a press conference, and that I wanted to be able to bring back quality fiction and poetry and real good stuff and make it international, because that's my particular passion to do a minimum of eight pages of international news in every issue, one major international feature, at least per issue, and to establish a new policy, which was that coverage on women in other countries would be done by women journalists from those countries. To my horror, my dear, they met my terms and I have barely had a chance to wash my hair ever since. And the wonderful part is that against all industry logic, it'll never fly. It'll be too political, too arty. Besides, you can't. You can't do it without advertising subsidy. Support it with with readers, with readers, petitions alone. And it is, ironically, more successful than it was when it was a commercial magazine. Is it in the black? It's out of its way out of debt. Yeah. I mean, I was told that if we could make it to a total circulation of seventy five thousand in two years, you know, we'd be okay, but never to never to count on more than five thousand on newsstands across the whole nation because you don't have movie star covers. Forget it. So by the time we had our first birthday, we had already doubled those figures. And we are now approaching two hundred and fifty thousand subscriptions, and we sell seventy thousand on newsstands with no movie star covers. And it's the wonderful readers. Is this a precedent? Do you see this as as a way out for other magazines? General interest magazines would like to free themselves. I grant you that that,Ms. Magazineis different because it it is an advocacy magazine, and it is like the voice of the women's movement now of the international women's movement. But I think, in fact, that it could be a happy contagion. I hope so, and I tell you honestly that every time, um, a journalist, male or female, when we launched the New Miz, um, and then when we celebrated the first and the second birthday would come back and do interviews at some point, whether they're print or broadcast media, they go off the record and they sort of pump my hand enthusiastically and say, oh God, I hope this is catching. And then out comes their horror story at their newspaper or their magazine of of the effect of advertising on their editorial freedom. So I think it's a real serious censorship problem that we have that most folks don't even know about. This is Point of View on WNUA 95.5. We're talking to Robin Morgan, the editor in chief of Miz magazine and the author of a new book collection of essays called The Word of a Woman Feminist Dispatches, 1968 to 1992. Um, based on your experience those many years in the women's movement, how has it changed? What what major shifts, if any, have you seen in in those people who have been the driving force of the woman's movement and those who have joined it or followed it or otherwise participated. I think lots of changes. What? Um, well, I mean, it ranges from the movement itself matured, you know, um, that means more political sophistication, more tactical sophistication, um, not only among the long distance runners, but um, but among all of us, um the issues themselves have broadened over the years. You know, we used to speak of women's issues and sometimes the media still does. But the truth is there, there are no issues that are not women's issues. I mean, all issues are feminist issues. Um, women are the last hired in the first fired the debt. The economy is a women's issue. Um, crime is a women's issue. The environment is decidedly a women's issue. And it's not coincidental that women have been some of the driving forces behind environmental movements. When you look at things internationally, you see it even more acutely. Ninety percent of all refugee populations are women and children, the poor around the world and in this country as well are women and children. Two thirds of all illiterates are women. And while the general illiteracy rate is falling, the female illiteracy rate is rising. So the issues themselves, whether it's technology, reproductive technology, for example, this creates a whole bunch of new problems, possibly for women. Um, there's no way you can look that that there isn't, you know what I would call a feminist issue? The, the that's both good news and bad news. I mean, the bad news is it's like a, you know, a woman's list, a to do list. Oh my God, women's work is never done. The good news is that women all over the planet, um, in many different ways are in fact mobilizing and coming up with really pragmatic, non pompous, consensual, non-violent solutions to lots of things. And it, it seems to me the hope of the twenty first century for all of us, for men as well as women. That's a I mean, that's a vision that I think a lot of people, and I'm one of them, would like to share of the impact that women can have. I wonder sometimes if the movement, and if those supportive of it have sort of an idealized version of, of a homogeneous female population. Women are, are kinder, gentler, more prone to compassion than men. I mean, there are certainly women in politics who take opposite points of view to those you've expressed. And I wonder whether as women get more and more involved in and have gotten more and more involved in politics, whether you perceive a sort of shattering of of that myth or a crumbling of that that image that people have of women in politics. Well, I didn't mean it to sound quite that simplistic. I mean, I know I'm certainly not saying women are, you know, more pacifistic, inherently good or better. Wonderful. Terrific people in my life, in my experience, they are. Well, what is interesting is that is that even cross-culturally. Um, and we're not sure why this is. I mean, some people would say that there are biological differentials and that there is a. culturally reinforced testosterone poisoning problem that some of our brothers have. But. But what is true when really, when you look at things cross-culturally, women tend to want to settle things more by consensus than by confrontation, for example. I mean, there's not a huge, you know, libraries filled with books on why are women so violent, you know? Um, but you're quite right that as women move into, um, more policy making and power, uh, decisions, the trick is not is to change the system, not let the system, you know, change the women. And you, you know, you certainly see your Margaret Thatcher's in the world. Um, it is also true that that she did not call herself a feminist, had no particular commitment to, you know, to women and children. I mean, she had come up through the ranks the boys way, playing it by the boys, boys rules. And we used to joke that, you know, in the room with Thatcher, if you said there's a woman here, she'd say, where? where, you know, but, but, um, what, what we do know demographically is that women in parliaments, for example, around the world, and we would hope now with a critically, um, higher than ever before number of women in the House and the Senate and even in state legislatures here, is that they tend to bring more immediate concerns. They, you know, it's sort of like, don't give me abstractions, you know, how am I going to feed this kid in the next half hour? This kid is hungry. Um, more attention to human services, more attention to the way that quality of life is actually lived instead of grandiose, you know, points of light abstractions and, and that you do see as a real difference in, in women, in parliaments around the world and women in policy making decisions. So I think it's one of the jobs of the women's movement and for that matter of men of conscience is when we do put good folks in power, women or men, is to hold their feet to the fire, that they stand by their promises and to remind them that we're the folks who put them in and. And we intend for them to change the system and not be eroded by it. Well, let me back up and ask a little bit about Ms. Magazine. You made reference to your staff. Are there men on the staff? Uh, not at the moment. There have been in the past. And there may be. You take articles written by men once in a while. Not. I mean, there's no rule that we don't. We tend to publish women more simply because we're, you know, we're trying to be affirmative action. If you look at almost any other newspaper or magazine and the rest of the world, it's mostly men with, with, with a, you know, beginning to be a little inroad made now and then by women journalists. But, um, so we try to be a space for women, but that doesn't preclude that we might publish men. There's, there's a line or two, a couple of references in your book to the concept of, uh, news women. Um, and, and at various times in the movement, its encouragement of female reporters being assigned to cover the movement. It's, uh, some, I think you've been among them who have refused to deal with male journalists assigned to cover. It was a policy that we started way back. The first essay in the book is a participatory journalism funny piece on the the very first protest against the Miss America pageant in 1968, which, as it turns out, I organized. And that and many of the pieces in the book are like a sort of, you know, behind the scenes at the women's movement, what really happened instead of the way the media got it wrong, or well-meaning academics sit up in academia and they study the women's, they do a twenty year retrospective, and God love them. They get it wrong. So. So it seemed important to set it down from from the folks who, you know, who brought you the women's movement. And you're quite right. One of the things that we decided to do at the pageant protest was to recognize only news women. Now, there was a very, very pragmatic reason for this. I mean, we didn't mean to be anti-male. We meant to be pro-women. And and you have to remember the context. In 1968, most of the women on newspapers were stuck, no matter how good journalists they were on doing flower shows covering fashion shows, and we wanted them to be able to have a chance at some political protest coverage. We were not so naive as to think they would, you know, give us special treatment. On the contrary, some of them bent over backwards to prove to their editors they were being fair. But it was important, and it was a policy that we kept to for at least ten years now. You can afford to be a little more generous in your policy, because now there are many more women still too few on editors desks, but at least a lot visual in front of the cameras, behind the microphones, and at the at the word processors. This is a 95.5. I'm Charlie Meyerson, we're talking with Robin Morgan, the editor in chief of Ms. Magazine, the author of a new collection of essays called The Word of a woman. Do you foresee a time, perhaps a time much to be desired? Maybe not when? When we don't need, don't have, don't want a woman's movement. When when society has achieved parity, I mean, when the. When the concept of feminism is is outdated. There used to be, you know, a saying in the in the sixties, I'm a child of the sixties. I came out of the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement. And, um, and there used to be a saying that, that the real job of a revolutionary, which of course was the phrase around that was to make oneself irrelevant. And in a, in a sense, it's, it's, it is still true. I mean, I'd love to see a time when there was no need for, you know, for, for a feminist movement, there was no need for an anti-racist movement. There was, you know, I mean, obviously, I think we're quite a ways away from that. I tried, um, the title essay of the book, the last essay, in fact, is a is in the form of a letter to a reader of any either gender, um, in the year two thousand nine, ninety two, a thousand years from now to try and sort of really step off the edge. That's one of the brand new essays. I mean, it's like, you know, I would say I think more than a third of the of the pieces in the book are are new. And this one is like the picture of our society. Well, I was trying to ventriloquist myself into a thousand years from now of sentient life looked at our culture. Why? What would they say about us? And, um, and some of it was not particularly pretty, but but there's a peculiar skein, a strand of hope that keeps, um, uh, shining through it. Um, and I think it has to do with, with just rage, justifiable rage, a healthy anger that is, in a strange way, a form of love. I mean, you know, when, when guys get upset because women get angry at them, I wish they would realize that it's a peculiar form. I grant peculiar of flattery, because if you really give up on somebody and have contempt for them, you don't you don't honor them with your anger, women's anger at men. Um, uh, you know, why don't you get it? Whether it's sexual harassment, whether it's, you know, rape or battery or violence against women or employment, why don't, you know, get it, get it is is in a sense, a mark of respect and a, and a belief that that we can all change. So it wound up being a peculiarly hopeful essay. Um, but, uh, you know, I don't, I mean, I like to think, I mean, I'm a feminist optimist. And so I like to think that we will, in fact, transform ourselves and become something really human. And then, yes, you're right, there would be no need for a women's movement. Well, we still have one now. And I want to know what you perceive to be the impact on it of a variety of developments in the news in recent months. So let's let's start with Anita Hill. Has has she been as many portrayed her? Um, has her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee been a watershed in the women's movement? Yes, absolutely. I mean, she is a friend. She did an exclusive piece for me for Ms. Magazine. And we became friends. And I rang her up the day after the elections and she is, in fact, exactly as she appeared. I mean, she's this gentle, soft spoken, dignified, modest lady. And I rang her up and I said, so how do you feel, Anita? I mean, you know, sort of a one woman revolution. Look, we got more women in the House and in the Senate. I mean, you know, you're doing. Oh, nonsense, Robin. It's not my doing. I mean, you all have worked for twenty years to do that. I said, well, no, of course. Sure. There's a movement and we have worked and but you, you, you were the trigger. This was the peg on which it all hung. Um, you, you, the outlet for the, for the outrage of women all across this country. And many women like wonderful Carol Moseley Braun in Illinois ran because they watched those hearings and said, enough. And then there was this low, wonderful gurgle of sort of chuckle on the other end of the phone. She said, well, for my small part in it, it feels pretty wonderful. Yeah. It's inestimable the effect she had and in fact, around the world because um, uh, the whole issue of sexual harassment, which, which we've been talking about for decades, I mean, there's a piece in the early seventies in this in the in the book that talks about sexual harassment. But but the media and, and the the public at large didn't really get it until those hearings. And she has changed history. May the goddess love her. I don't know if you're going to violate any confidence. You probably won't for us, but you've been talking to Anita Hill for some time. Any idea where is she headed in her life? Professionally? Politically. Any. Any projections? She is on the verge of founding. Um, what I think will be an extremely important, um, sort of research institute to study the intersecting issues of gender and race in our society. Um, I of course this is not in her plans, but I of course think that if Clinton really wanted to make history, she would be his first appointee to the Supreme Court. Speaking of Clinton appointees, there's been obviously a lot of talk about what role his wife should play, if any, in the administration in in the Clinton government have. What advice would you offer the president elect and his wife? Well, you know, I mean, this is such an interesting predicament because, um, first of all, we know that, you know, there have been first ladies before who have been extremely, you know, influential and sometimes unfortunate ways like astrology. But in any event, this is an interesting predicament because the, the, this is the first couple, um, to begin to reflect what is happening in many marriages, in fact, most in this country. So in that sense, they are very typical. And how is the institution of the white House going to deal with this? Um, I think obviously you can see it in the campaign. They've been very pragmatic, I might say, even cynical to the extent that they took this very bright, you know, hard hitting lawyer, um, and stuck her in a house dress and, you know, pretended she was a cookie baker. And the truth is that for many of us who in fact, find house dresses very comfortable and cookies delicious. There would be nothing wrong with that, except it happens not to be Hillary Rodham Clinton. I think they will for a while, cling to that image and she will do all the first lady things. But I think there's a really fierce intellect there. Um, and I hope that it they will tap into it for, for, for all the good it can do. Clearly, the issue that she's marked out for herself and will continue to do so is children and children's rights and children's needs. And that's very important. Um, you know what I think? I think that in time, the focus and the importance that we put on spouses first ladies wives of will diminish in direct proportion to women moving into the positions themselves. If you could wave a wand or lobby, what would you see as what would you like to see achieved? What single top priority item would you like to see come about in the next? Well, let's say four years just to choose an arbitrary, uh, in this country. In this country? Well, yeah. Or worldwide. I mean, what's the, the, the next major or the, the most important front for the women's movement or the women's movement? Well, I mean, in a sense, you could bunch it all together in terms of getting women into policy making decisions, because a lot will flow from that. If if, as is rumoured, for example, Donna Shalala becomes the secretary, the cabinet member for Health and Human Services, that in itself begins to tell you what will happen with health, with health care, um, with social programs that really impact on poor women and pregnant women and women on welfare. I mean, amazingly good stuff could come from that. Um, I would say health in the economy hand in hand, because women are really hit hardest by both. We're, we are, we use the health care system more than men because the female body goes through more changes. Um, and um and we are the last hired and the first fired. We know now that the phrase feminization of poverty is unfortunately very, very real. Um, and we've got folks literally dying in this country from starvation, not as dramatically as in Somalia. Um, which I might add is a fault, I think of sort of testosterone laden foreign policy in this country. It could have been addressed much earlier and without, um, you know, the Marines. But but even in this country, it's appalling in a country of this wealth and this power that that in most of the inner cities, you have a higher infant mortality rate than in Honduras. You know, so I would say that that's, that's, that's pretty, um, front and center, but, but under that same heading, I would look at violence against women, which is escalating and which is extremely serious and has to be addressed very quickly, is the Equal Rights Amendment or some sort of replacement legislation not an issue anymore? Oh no, it is. And it will be reintroduced yet again. And, you know, I mean, the reason that we lost it before was not because the people didn't want it. Every mass poll of the country and state by state, the real people, men and women, said, oh, yeah, I mean, like sixty, seventy percent. We lost it because of backroom deals in state legislatures. And the at that time, the rise of the ultra right, the fundamentalist. Right. So. Oh, no, we'll go back for that. It will actually make less difference once it's in place the era than it does not having it, if you know what I mean. Not not having it means a lot. Once we have it, it will actually mean less, but it will be an access entree I think, in many areas and a really important one for men as well as women. Our guest on this segment of Point of View has been Robin Morgan, the editor in chief of Ms. Magazine, the author of a collection of essays called The Word of a Woman Feminist Dispatches, 1968 to 1992. It's $19.95, published by W.W. Norton. I'm Charlie Meyerson. On behalf of Jenette Kerr, tanks for listening.